Over the last two years, top aides to Governor Cuomo, a\npolitical ally, and big campaign contributors were convicted of bid-rigging and\nother offenses stemming from state contracts tied to New York State\u2019s economic\ndevelopment projects. While the governor\nwas never accused of wrongdoing, it was clear that better oversight was needed\nin the way state contracts are awarded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thus, reformers cheered when in this year\u2019s State of the State\naddress, the governor surprisingly announced that he had an agreement with\nState Comptroller DiNapoli to implement a new process to strengthen oversight\nof the government\u2019s contact award process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The governor stated back in January, \u201cComptroller DiNapoli and I\nhave agreed on a new process to implement procurement reforms. I want to publicly thank, the Comptroller for\nhis good work and his cooperation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The agreement hinged on legislation. With the legislative session having come and\ngone by late June, that legislation was never approved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the governor was asked last week about the lack of action,\nhe stated that an agreement was, in fact, reached \u2013 not legislatively, but\nadministratively. The Comptroller\u2019s\noffice had a different view, “The details of our agreement were included\nin the budget proposals of the Senate and the Assembly but did not make it into\nthe final budget and was not resolved before the end of session.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why does this matter? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Under the state Constitution, New Yorkers elect a state\nComptroller. While many states do not\nhave Comptrollers to oversee governmental finances, of those that do, voters in\nonly nine directly elect them. In other\nstates they are either appointed by the governor or the Legislature. The rationale for this unusual arrangement is\nthat New Yorkers decided that they needed to have an independent watchdog\nmonitoring the state\u2019s finances. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2011, the governor argued that he needed fewer restrictions\non his economic development efforts and lawmakers backed his plan to rein in\nthe Comptroller\u2019s oversight \u2013 limitations that included diluting oversight of\neconomic development efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course, there is no way to know for sure if that decision led\nto the corruption scandals that hit the Administration, but it\u2019s fair to say\nthat it might have made the now-disgraced former aides to the governor a bit\nmore cautious had they known that the Comptroller was watching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At\nthe heart of the scandals were two non-profit entities set up by state\ngovernment to act on its behalf and that were central to advancing programs\naround the governor\u2019s so-called \u201cBuffalo Billion\u201d economic development\nplan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\ncorruption cases brought by the U.S. Attorney that led to the convictions of\nthe governor\u2019s top aides as well as the leader of New York\u2019s hi-tech economic\ndevelopment efforts highlighted that the secrecy surrounding their deal making\ncontributed mightily to a culture in which the risk of corruption grew. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And that risk led to the misuse of taxpayers\u2019 dollars through\nsweetheart deal-making between government officials and lobbyists,\n\u201cpay-to-play\u201d campaign practices that hinged on big campaign contributions from\nthose receiving lucrative government contracts, and a web of shadowy corporate\nentities created by the government through which billions of taxpayer dollars\nwere spent outside of the normal transparency measures required of traditional\ngovernment entities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Waste, fraud and abuse not only waste tax dollars, they erode the\npublic\u2019s confidence in its government. The\nstate Constitution established a Comptroller\u2019s office to be an independent bean\ncounter and help bolster public confidence in governmental finances. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s clear that those powers should now be restored and\nstrengthened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\ngovernor was correct in his State of the State address that steps should be\ntaken to enhance the powers of the Comptroller. \nBut actions speak louder than words. \nThe governor must make good on his pledge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Over the last two years, top aides to Governor Cuomo, a political ally, and big campaign contributors were convicted of bid-rigging and other offenses stemming from state contracts tied to New York State\u2019s economic development projects. While the governor was never accused of wrongdoing, it was clear that better oversight was needed in the way […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2285"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2286,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2285\/revisions\/2286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}